The Ascent vaporizer, the launch, why we got delayed and a review

The Ascent is the much anticipated portable vaporizer from the makers of the DaVinci V2. The unit was first expected in May/June 2013, an initial delay pushed that back to early fall. Further issues with the early units pushed the release until late Fall. Finally, the Ascent was released just before Christmas 2013.

Unfortunately for dealers like us, Vaporizers.ca, a few select online dealers had agreed to buy large quantities of the Ascent in order to secure exclusivity. This meant that dealers like us, despite having sold the DaVinci for years were going to be delayed until a certain amount of time had passed. That time finally ended in May 2014, we were able to offer the Ascent to our clients.

The big question is: was it worth the wait?

Let's find out, here is our review:We received our first unit in May 2014.

The first thing we noticed was the impressive packaging, they definitely know how to package a retail product. The box, the manual, the kit itself, everything was done well.

The Ascent itself is an attractive unit and feels pretty solid. It’s not a stealth unit but is compact and a reasonable size; however, hiding it would be difficult. For us personally, stealth isn’t a very important feature in a vaporizer so that's fine with us. Considering you get a 3 hour battery and a larger sized bowl, we consider that good compensation for it being a bit larger unit than some of the other portables out there. For clients that really need as compact or stealthly as possible check our compact / stealth category on our website.

The display and buttons are really simple, so is loading the bowl. For ease of use, the Ascent does get top marks. We are definitely impressed with its simplicity while still offering good performance.

Vapor production was solid, for a portable we are happy. We didn't think it tasted great, it merely tasted okay. We actually thought the glass would help more taste wise but it didn't. Since it didn't have the pure glass taste, we'd prefer a non breakable easily replaceable mouthpiece but we do understand there are some users that only want to inhale from glass.

The battery life is very good, 3+ hours, possibly the Ascents best feature. Unless you are using your Ascent excessively, you won't run out of battery between charges.

We can't comment on its reliability yet but we assume after all the delays and 5 months on the market, they have everything figured out at this stage.

Overall, the Ascent was worth the wait for us, it is no question a really good portable vaporizer. Easy to use, reasonable price, good retail kit, solid vapor production most of the time and a long lasting battery.